


Psychological Defenses

by BloodyAbattoir



Category: Black Veil Brides, Falling in Reverse, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anorexia, Bullying, Death, Denial, Displacement, Eating Disorders, Gay Male Character, Homophobia, Lesbian Character, Multi, Personification of Death, Rationalization, Repression, Serial Killers, Suicide, Thought Projection, Unrequited Love, identification, over compensating, psychological defenses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-02-07 01:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 4,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1879467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodyAbattoir/pseuds/BloodyAbattoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death  for us all in the end. Sometimes, it's brought on by the actions of our very own mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introducing Death

**Author's Note:**

> This was a project for a psychology class I took. Since the class has been done for over a month by now, I feel like sharing it with all of you.

   
Death comes for everyone in the end. Most of the time, Death comes creeping, slowly, and the person knows that they're going to go soon. They don't know when, but they know that they don't have much longer left. Other times, Death will just jump in and take someone, like through a freak accident. And sometimes, Death will stalk a person, for months, or even years, before he finally swoops in and cuts the thread of their life's continuity.   
  
Of course, because of the various mental defenses that they've put up, they're no longer quite in touch with reality as we know it. Those defenses that they've relied on for so long have now become their own executioner. These are just some of the tales of all those wretched souls that Death has stalked for so long, and finally swooped in and taken from this world when their own mind's self defense mechanisms become too much for them to tolerate.


	2. Denial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't have a problem at all.

  
**DENIAL**

I don't have a problem in the least. I don't always have to drink. I can always quit tomorrow if I wanted to. But I don't want to. To be honest, I actually like the feeling of being drunk all the time. When I'm drunk, I don't have to worry about anything. I swear, the alcohol has no control over me. I have complete control over it. I choose if and when to drink, no ways about it.

And I choose to drink. All the time.

I don't understand why my wife left me and took our daughter with her. I think she's crazy. I mean, when she left me, her words were, "You have a problem, Gerard. You need to get help."

I'm saying that she's the one with a problem who needs help, cause really, she thinks I have a problem! I don't have a problem, and I sure as hell don't need any help! I'm perfectly fine! I don't have a problem! Everyone has been telling me that for years, even my brother, and he's known me his entire life!

I don't have a problem about the amount of booze I drink. Sure, I don't work much anymore, but at the same time, I can still vaguely provide food and shelter for myself and I can cook a little. It's not like I have such a problem with it that I'm going to die or anything! I mean, if my liver was failing or something, I'd probably have figured it out by now, yeah?

And this bottle of Vodka isn't going to hurt me. I don't even have to drink it if I don't want to, because like I've said a million times before, to everyone I know, I don't have a problem. It doesn't control me, control it. But I want to drink tonight. So I will.

**I've had my eye on this one for a while. Poor man. He keeps denying that he has a problem, even in the face of the glaring evidence. There's no two ways about it, he has massive problems. He still denied it even when his family left him, saying it was them or the bottle. Of course, he chose the bottle over his family.**

I knew he was going to drop dead of his alcoholism (which according to him, he doesn't have) some time or another, but I wasn't quite sure when. Looks like this bottle was his last. Hey, even if he had put down that bottle that night, he probably would've made it. But he didn't, and when he was passed out, his liver gave up on him.

His mind put up a very common defense, denial. Refusing to believe a threatening or otherwise unacceptable fact, his alcoholism, by constantly saying that he doesn't have a problem, Gerard managed to drink himself to death, because he so strongly believed that he didn't have a problem in the slightest. Take note of this. Denial can kill you.   



	3. Repression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Repression blocks out your worst memories.

  
**REPRESSION**

There's just a huge chunk of my memories missing, from the time that I was a young kid starting that crappy middle school where I got bullied all the time, when I was like 11, to the time I left when I was 14. Sure, I have some memories from the time, but for the most part, I can't remember most of what happened at school.

It isn't like I have Alzheimer's or anything, because I'm not even 23 yet, and I doubt that the disease would set in so young. None of my family members even have it to begin with! But I'm pretty sure that something has to have happened to make me block out those few years. I mean, I've heard about things like that happening, severe trauma making you block out things, sometimes even years of your life. I guess that's what I get for watching too many detective shows. And Dr. Phil. Can't forget him, can we?

But then again, if it wasn't traumatic, then why would I have blocked out so much of those years, and why did I end up convincing my parents to let me move halfway across the country to let me go to highschool where my favorite aunt lived? It just doesn't make any sense. Hence why I'm headed back to my old town. But my gut is warning me not to.

The first thing that happens when I get there is this guy who look like he's all brawn and no brain accosts me and yells, "Hey freak! Run away again, or else you'll regret it!"

He looks familiar to me, but I can't quite place where I know him from.

I should've listened, because that night, the door to my hotel room is busted down, and a crowd of vaguely familiar looking guys burst in, holdin various pieces of pipe and baseball bats. I swear one guy even has a crowbar.

"Hey freak, you shoulda stayed away after ya ran like a scared chicken after middle school. You shoulda even taken my advice and left town as soon as you got here." The same guy from earlier says, advancing, his baseball bat held aloft.

****  
Repression occurs when a particularly traumatic or stressful event, or series of events happen, and the brain, unable to cope with it, 'shuts out' these memories, preventing them from being recalled easily, if at all. Many sufferers report being unable to recall certain events or points in their life when the trauma happened, as if there was 'nothing' there. Hypnosis therapy, while it may be able to bring out these memories, is a controversial practice, as the person is suggestible to suggestion, and may create false memories out of what the therapist is telling them.

Poor Andy here was a victim of severe bullying in middle school, and after middle school was over, left the area completely. This severe mental and emotion burden was deemed too much for him to handle by his brain, which blocked out the incidents near completely. Classic case of repression right there. Sad to say, Andy probably would have lived, if not for the fact that he chose to question why his brain blocked out those memories. Sometimes, things like repression are beneficial to us, but only if we accept it as is, and do not try to pry into the reasons why.   



	4. Sublimation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've always wanted to kill people. But I can't go around saying that. Yet my desires are so strong. So I joined Special Forces.

**SUBLIMATION  
**   
I've always had the want to kill people. But only the people who deserved it. You know, the guys who kidnap girls and force them into prostitution rings, the drug dealers, the rapists, the murderers, you get my drift.   
  
Of course, it's not like I can just go around saying things like that, much less doing it. So if I ever wanted to deal with these urges, of course, I had to make a good enough excuse for it. So I did. I joined a special ops team as soon I was able to do so. If anyone asked, it was because I wanted to make the world a safer and better place for people to live in. And I did.   
  
The only thing is, I wanted to do that by killing off the people that made it a dangerous world. If you asked the guys on my team, I did my job very well, even if I was a bit trigger happy. So I guess that means that altogether, I'm not all that bad of a person.   
  
**Bob here died in the line of duty hours after this. As it stood, he new sublimation from the inside out. His unacceptable urges of killing people were masked by his transforming it into the more acceptable task of being in law enforcement. Sublimation can be a dangerous thing, especially for other people.**


	5. Regression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Go back to a time you were more comfortable in.

**REGRESSION  
**   
I don't know how long I've been trapped in here, but I think it's starting to affect my mental process. Before all this happened, I was one of the most mature people in my group of friends. Then, I got kidnapped.   
  
For the first while, I'm guessing a week or two, I held out just fine. I had believed that I was going to get rescued any day. I acted just like myself as much as I could under the situation. I don't think I did too badly at it. Then, when it became clear to me that things weren't going to change, and that I wouldn't get rescued any time soon, my mental state started to deteriorate. I'm dead sure of it.   
  
I realized that going to sleep, I started sleeping in the fetal position, which I haven't done since I was a kid. More than one morning, I've woken up to find my thumb in my mouth, another habit that I haven't engaged in since the time I was probably 5 or so. I've started talking to my imaginary friends that I had as a child too. This certainly isn't good in the lightest. I'm scared of what's going to happen next if I keep acting like a child.   
  
**A week after this, Spencer's captor realized that the cops were closing in on him, and panicked, killing him and dumping the body to try and cover up his crime. But before he died, Spencer was starting to undergo regression. Unable to handle the severe amounts of stress that being kidnapped and held against his will put on his mind, he started to regress, going back to earlier stages in life, as evidenced by his sucking his thumb, change in sleeping position, and talking to imaginary friends like he did when he was a child. This regression might have helped him come out with his mental state intact, if only he had lived.**


	6. Projection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I hate her, and I don't understand why she won't leave me alone. Dammit, I'm the one in love with her, and she hates my guts!

  
**PROJECTION**

I just don't understand why Alicia won't get it that I'm not into her! This whole weird passive aggressive way she has about it is getting to me even more. I don't like her in the slightest, but she makes it so obvious how much she likes me, it's completely annoying!

She's always talking about me, and it's always so loud that half the people in the room can hear it, and she's always glancing at me. She always seems angry that I don't like her. My brother and my friends are always asking me if I like her, and I always deny it.

Oh, who am I kidding? It's all the other way around. I'm hopelessly in love with this chick who treats me lower than that piece of gum on the bottom of her shoe. The people nearest to me know it, mainly my best friends and my brother, who can read me more easily than a billboard at the side of the road. But to anyone else that asks, it's as I said it at the beginning. I hate her, and she's hopelessly in love.

Everyone who knows the truth is always telling me just give up on her, because besides the fact that she doesn't harbor a single amicable emotion towards me, there's her linebacker boyfriend to deal with. They're afraid that one of these days he's going to lose it towards me, and that I'll become toast, considering I'm a nerd, and your 12 year old sister probably has more of a muscle mass than I have. Maybe one of these days I should listen to them, and stop obsessing over her. But til then, to the outside world, I'm sick and tired of her and her lovesick attitude.

**Young Mikey should've listened to his friends and family when they told him that she was no good for him. Less than a week after this touching little inner stream of thought, the thinker of these thoughts was found dead in a ditch. His love interest's boyfriend finally got sick and tired of having him hanging around so much, and decided to show it.**

I didn't think I'd be collecting his soul, at least not so soon. After all, projection isn't always such a dangerous mental defense. It's a bit awkward, and gives some delusions, and possibly even start wars, but in itself, it usually doesn't cause all that much problems. Sometimes, it does help people to cope with things that they normally wouldn't be able to cope with should they have not put up those mental defenses.

Our little victim here was a prime example of projection. He couldn't admit his true feelings, so he 'projected' them onto someone else, and made it seem like they were the one feeling what he was truly feeling. It helped him to cope for the most part, making him think that he didn't like her, and that she really did like him, and it was his choice not to have anything to do with him. In fact, if not for the person that this girl was dating, our recently departed soul would've probably made it very far in life, with minimal mental trauma from her not reciprocating his feelings.  



	7. Reaction Formation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of course, I'll have to make this look like an accident.

**REACTION FORMATION  
**   
I grew up in this super religious Catholic household. From the time I was a young child, I was taught many things. Among the most important, besides obeying God, and praying daily, and never having sex until you were married and seeking children, was that homosexuality was the ultimate sin, and for the longest time, I believed it.   
  
I also believed that I was straight.  
  
But then, around the time I hit puberty, I started to see girls differently. And when I say differently, I mean in a dramatic way, as in sexually attractive different. Of course, I didn't understand why, considering the background I had been raised with, and the views that had been put into my head, that I went along with and supported as much as a kid could.   
  
And since I was still living with my parents, I obviously couldn't come out and tell them all these feelings I was having. Instead of being told that it was ok or something like that, I'd be told that I was going straight to Hell, and that I was a freak, and that they were disappointed in ever having me. And it wasn't like I had anyone outside of the family that I could talk to about it, due to pretty much every one in this small town sharing the same narrow minded beliefs. So I learned to pretend.   
  
In my mind, I knew that I liked women, and that men were about as attractive as my coffee mug. It's the same feeling you get for someone of the same sex if you're straight. They might be decent looking, the same way you might say another girl looks pretty, or another guy looks buff, but to consider them as a romantic partner? I'll pass, thanks. But as I was saying, I knew that I liked women, but I couldn't say that to just about anyone who lived in this town, because it would instantly mark me as messed up in the head, and that I was flawed, and something was wrong with me.   
  
But to the outside world, I made it seem like I was straight. Dated guys, even though I had no interest in them. Said that I only saw girls as friends, nothing more. Did my best not to stare in the locker room at the other changing girls in there. But above all, when the topic of homosexuality came up, I immediately jumped in and spewed statements about how immoral and wrong it was. I put up a perfect front, and made it seem like I was the perfect Catholic girl. Yet, inside, I never forgot my true feelings.   
  
Maybe I should have, because over the past 5 or so years of me feeling this way, and hiding it, it's gotten to be too much for me to handle. I'm sick of always having to put out this fake personality to everyone so that I can survive here. Of course, I'll have to make this look like an accident, so my parents don't have to bear the shame of having a child who went to Hell because of suicide.   
  
**Mere weeks after this little episode, Sandra walked out into the middle of the road and was promptly struck and killed. It appeared that the stress of maintaining her fake personality was too much for her to handle. Her thoughts and feelings were unacceptable for the place that she lived in, so for her to be able to survive there, she created a more 'acceptable' set of thoughts and feelings that she displayed to the world. To psychologists, this is called Reaction Formation. To her, it caused her too much heartache.**


	8. Displacement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I used to be a serial killer. Maybe you've heard of me.

  
**DISPLACEMENT**

I used to be a serial killer, and maybe you've heard of me. They called me the Vegas Ripper because of how closely my crimes resembled what the original Jack the Ripper did to his own victims. But for a good few years, the women in Las Vegas were too scared to go anywhere by themselves, even during the brightest part of the day. But then again, for the most part, the majority of them were safe. You see, I had a specific type of woman that I targeted. That's how the profilers from the FBI caught me in the end, but it took them a hell of a long time to realize that I even had a type. Of course, if they had been more focused on physical appearances, and not area or socioeconomic status, then they woulda caught me sooner.

I did have a type. They all had the dark eyes, the black hair, the caramel skin that my mother had. But more so than that, they were all people like she was. The type of person to walk out on her children leaving them to be raised with her mother and husband who was off drinking more often than not. Now here's where I think I stumped the investigators. These women, while they were all the same type like my mother, they weren't all of the same walk of life.

Obviously, I killed prostitutes, because besides being easy prey, there was just no way that they could stand out there on the corner all day and night, and then come home and raise their children. I bet their children, if they had any, which I doubt, barely if ever saw them. My mother was the same way, in a sense, because me and my brother would barely if ever see her, and when we did, she always had a nasty temper.

But besides the prostitutes, I did kill a few average women, and some that were in the snooty upper class. Besides looking just like my mother, they acted just like her too. I couldn't help but see that some of them chose to just walk out on their children and leave them, or treat them like a piece of trash in the gutter.

That burns for me, especially since I already told you about my past. In a sense, in killing these women was like killing my own mother. I did it because I was pissed with her for all that she's done, and everything that she put me through. If I could, I would've killed her years ago, but I can't, because I know if I ever ran into her, I'd probably start blubbering like a wimp. So I killed surrogates of her instead.

When I finally got a chance to plead my case in court, the judge refused to have any of it. The jury all thought I was a monster, insane. They gave me the death penalty.

**I had to wait quite a while for this one, since they kept pushing his execution date back. Ronnie here killed those women because of displacement. He couldn't bring himself to even confront his mother about the way that she had behaved during his formative years, since to him, that was too threatening of a situation, so he displaced those feelings, onto other women who looked and acted similar to his mother, which to him were less threatening, as they had no way that they could emotionally injure him like his mother could if he dared to confront her.**

Displacement is often found in murder cases similar to the ones that this man perpetrated. They can't kill the real person, so they kill someone else in letting out that pent up rage. It can also be found in cases of domestic abuse, where whatever aggravates the abuser outside of the home (or even inside) will be taken out on the victim, regardless of whether or not the victim had anything to do with the trigger.   



	9. Rationalization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rationalization: The (often irrational) belief that because one has performed or done one activity, he cannot do another, or because he or she has done one, they can do the other.

I ate a slice of pie after dinner last night. I really shouldn't have, but my aunt made it, and she insisted I try it. So I did. God alone knows how many thousands of calories was in that thing. After all, my aunt makes it with real sugar, not Splenda, and you know how many calories are in just a tablespoon of sugar? 15. 15 fucking calories. Now how many cups of sugar did she put in it? I don't even want to know.   
  
Logic dictates that you only need a certain amount of calories to maintain your weight every day. Based on my activity levels and weight, I only need about 1700. Now couple that with the fact that if you consistently eat more calories than you need every day, and don't burn them off, you're going to get fat. I used to be a chunky kid, and I don't particularly want to go back there again.   
  
So to balance off the overload of calories I had last night, I'm skipping breakfast, instead just having an apple. Several hours later, it's lunch, and my stomach is growling but I refuse to eat. Still probably need to burn it all off. So I hide in the library, where food is more than forbidden. At home, I take a plate up to my room, claiming homework, and toss it out the window. The dogs eat it within minutes. I feel like I'm about to faint from the hunger, but hey, I don't want to get fat, yanno?   
  
Later that night, I come back out to put the plate back in the kitchen, and I end up eating a small piece of the lasagne Mom made. It's pretty good. 10 minutes later, when I'm back in my room, the guilt hits me again. I'm going to get fat. Looks like since I ate again tonight I can skip eating again tomorrow to stay this small.   
  
**The next morning, Christian, CC to his friends, never woke up. He had been starving himself like this for months. This time, our killer was rationalization, the belief that because a person does one thing, he can or cannot do something else, because he did the first thing. Here, CC held the irrational belief that he was going to get fat if he ate too much. While that in itself is a rational belief, to him, 'too much' was irrationalized as being something most of us would barely consider to be a snack. He rationalized to himself that since he ate, he needed to starve the next day, in order to keep himself from getting fat, saying if he didn't starve, he would balloon drastically. Over several months, this lead to his heart rate dropping so low, and the organ itself growing so weak, it stopped in his sleep. After all, if it hadn't been his heart this time, it might've been his kidneys tomorrow. They were on the brink of fatal failure.**


	10. Identification

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, forming an alliance with people and thinking that you can trust them, identifying with them, can be dangerous.

My father hates gay and lesbian people. He thinks that they should burn in hell. My mother isn't so uptight about it, but she too, believes that those kinds of people are wrong for loving the gender that they do.   
  
So how the hell did two people like them manage to get a son like me? A 'faggot', as they like to say? Did God make a mistake? Was I supposed to be born to two extremely accepting parents? I don't think I'll ever know, but even if I did, that probably won't change the situation that I live in.   
  
I'm gay as a damn rainbow, and my parents are homophobic to the next level.   
  
It's not like I really can form a relationship with anyone in this town about it either, because pretty much everyone I know is homophobic. So I guess that the internet is the only place I can go to find some vague form of security. So I join a forum for gay teens. No problem, right?  
  
 **Wrong. In time, little Frankie here grew to fairly trusting of these new-found friends. However, it only takes one bad apple to ruin the lot. Several months after he had formed alliances with these people, one of them sent him a message, wanting to hook up with him. Naively, believing that he could trust them, he decided to go ahead and meet up with them. The man he met up was not a teenage, but a middle-aged man, who used Frank and slit his throat afterward, dumping his body in a back alley as though he was trash. Sometimes, forming an alliance with people and thinking you can trust them, identifying with them, can be dangerous.** \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
